Setting up your Azure Sphere certified board for Azure IoT

Azure Sphere is a secured, high-level application platform and highly scalable IoT platform for devices like microcontrollers. It provides various features such as cloud code deployment through Over The Air (OTA), health management, device management etc.

Azure Sphere OS is the supporting Linux based operating system.

TLDR

Prerequisites Singing into Azure portal Downloading the SDK and CLI Creating a user Creating an Azure active directory for a subscription Setting up a device

Let’s get started…

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Prerequisites

An Azure certified dev board There are 3 in the market as of now Click on the link below to buy one if you don't have one already Avnet Azure Sphere MT3620 Seeed MT3620 Mini Dev Board Seeed Azure Sphere MT3620

I have the Avnet Azure Sphere MT3620

Windows 10 PC running Anniversary Update or higher

Visual Studio 2019/2017

Singing into Azure portal

Click on this link to go to the login page.

Click on the sign-in button on the top left corner of the screen.

Once you have signed in click on portal next to the sign-in button.

Downloading the SDK

NOTE: Make sure you have a windows 10 PC running Anniversary Update or higher.

To download the SDK click on this link. Scroll down to the Download the Azure Sphere SDK for Visual Studio Preview section of the website.

To download the CLI tool Click on this link. This is only for windows users.

Creating a user

Note: This step is only if you are using a personal azure account and subscription. Else use company related details only.

This step is coupled with the active directory step. The default directories user is not permitted for azure sphere related tasks such as uploading code claiming devices, claiming devices, claiming tenants, etc.

To create a new active directory navigate to the Azure portal and search for “active directory” under “all services”.

Under the “manage” section click on “Users”

Then click on “+ New user”.

We now are given with a form to fill

Fill in the following details: Radio option: Choose “Create user”. This will allow adding your own details for the user being created. User name: the user name of the user followed by the <global admin email address>@onmicrosoft.com Name: Name of the user First name: First name of the user Last name: Last name of the user Password: You can choose auto-generated or “Let me create the password” These passwords are for one time login purposes and azure will prompt you to change it immediately after the first login. Initial password: Type the password here if you have chosen “Let me create the password”.

Your form would look something like this

Creating an Azure active directory for a subscription

Note: This step is only if you are using a personal azure account and subscription. Else use company related details only.

By default, once you have created an account in Azure you are provided with a base active directory where you are the global admin. Azure Sphere requires to create a new user under the default active directory.

Under the “manage” section click on “Groups”

Then click on “+ New groups”.

We now are given with a form to fill

Fill in the following details: Group type: If the group is Security based or Office 365. Choose “Security”. Group Name: The name of the group Group Description: Description of the group. It can be skipped Member Type: Selects between Dynamic and Assigned. Assigned is selected by default. Owner: Choose your default directory’s owner or the global admin user. Member Selected: Select the member you just created

Your form must look something like this

Setting up a device

There are 3 main steps in setting up a device

1. Claim your device
2. Configure WIFI-settings of your device

Now that we have a user and an active directory to access Azure Sphere. Let's move on to claim our device.

Note: For the following steps connect your device to your computer

If you are on this step the Azure Sphere must have been downloaded and installed.

We first need to login to Azure Sphere Type the following command to login

azshpere login

A new window will pop up fill in the details of the newly created user and type the one time password in the password field.

Now to claim the device. With your device connected to your computer type the following commands

azsphere device claim

To set a tenant for the device type the following command Note: once a device is set to a particular tenant it cannot be changed

azsphere tenant create --force --name <tenant name>

Connecting the device to the internet.

Type the following command

azsphere device wifi add --ssid <SSID> --psk <password>

Your device must now automatically start updating the firmware. If not check your internet connection or the connection between the device and your laptop.

To check the network status of your device type the following command

azsphere device wifi show-status

Type the following command to check if you are running the latest software.

azsphere device show-ota-status

When the download started

When it has completed the setup

Congratulations YOU DID IT!!!

In the next article, we will discuss uploading code to your device…

Thanks for sticking till the end…

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